Michael

The Value of Change

Every year I spend one day tracking how I spend every minute of my workday in order to see where I am losing time. Once it allowed me to realize that the slow boot-up of my computer was serious, when it took 13 minutes. Prior to tracking it, I just knew “it was taking a long time.”

When I had my leadership team do it (and yes, they all moaned and complained) one of them realized that she was spending 30-45 minutes per day listening to her “top performer” complain about his job.

The activity isn’t to catch anyone being bad or wrong. It is simply to raise awareness of what things we could change to affect our productivity.

January 3 I found 3 pennies in a Target parking lot in Seattle. Yesterday I found this quarter on the sidewalk in Philly. I always find change, and have often wondered how much I find in a year. So I decided to track it.

So far I am up 28 cents for 2019! And today I will track my entire day again, minute by minute, to see where I am on track. And when and where I have jumped the rails.

It is easy to quantify change (the noun). Quantifying Change, (the verb) is harder, but certainly can pay much bigger dividends.